


it could only end in Tragedy (but wouldn’t it be wonderful all the same)

by SeleneLavellan



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death and Spring AU, Essentially an AU Retelling of the Hades Persephone Myth, F/M, Hades/Persephone retelling, I'm terrible at tagging honestly, Multi, With Selene as Hades and Dirthamen as Persephone, With some of my own quirks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 02:21:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18841666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeleneLavellan/pseuds/SeleneLavellan
Summary: Time, together. Learning and yearning and conversing and nursing wounds that neither could find until the other. Joy and hope; flowers for the dead, color in the dark, and a new kind of warmth in their bed.





	it could only end in Tragedy (but wouldn’t it be wonderful all the same)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Feynite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/gifts).



> Hahaha hey I know I haven't made anything new in like four months and now its this and its short but also...I remembered to post it here, so...Points for that, I think.

“You’re very…lovely,” she stumbles, tongue tripping over social rubble in the awkward air of the evening.

Blue eyes blink behind dark strands; long, luscious, dripping like shadows over an otherwise painfully colorful ensemble. Off-balance, like her. Out of place, and unsure in his own skin: crawling with vines and dabbled in dirt as it is.

Another blossom opens on the curve of his collarbone, and Selene nearly gasps in wonder at the sight.

 

“Oh,” he breathes, and she nearly shrinks back from the shock of it.  _Breath_. What a strange, alien behavior after…

After so many years of her duties.

 

Perhaps this was a poor idea, debt of bet hanging around her or not.

_‘Befriend a member of the world of sky, rediscover what it is like to be near someone with a heart that beats, with life still echoing in their bones, with light in their eyes and red in their lips-’_

Lips that finally close as he manages a quiet “Thank you,” with fingers twisting in feathers from his own back.

 

She swallows around a throat that hasn’t needed it in decades, and nods politely back. The curls of her hair itch against the back of her neck with the movement, arms pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

 

“Do you come to these often?” He asks.

 

The question catches her so off guard she nearly laughs.

 

“I-uh-I’m sorry, what?”

 

“The parties,” The man explains, gesturing towards the stone door leading back to the ballroom and festivities still in full swing inside. “My family attends most regularly, though this is the first I’ve attended in…some time.  I am afraid there is little I am familiar with when it comes to the expectations of these evenings.”

Selene blinks, mind racing with stories Des has brought back from his past excursions; feasts of food and flesh and beasts and whatever extravagances the gods see fit to fill themselves with in the moment and thinks-no, no.

 

“This is my first in millenia,” She admits with a shrug and a half-honest smile. “If there are rules to these events I might have known once, the memory is long buried and lost to me. I uh,” She chuckles. “I don’t get out, much. My responsibilities keep me far from here, and it’s only the result of a particularly wily string of fate falling into the lap of a mischievous and trouble-loving imp that’s allowed me to be present here tonight.”

“My gratitudes to the imp in question, then.” The man says with a quirk of his lip, and while, no, being a God of Death doesn’t exactly leave Selene with much of a heartbeat, it feels as though hers has flipped right into her throat all the same.

 

“Do you dance?” She asks before she can think better of it. Think of what her touch brings and the cold and the rivers of her home and the loneliness waiting for her by moonset.

 

“I…suppose I have never tried,” He says, moving towards her all the same.

She takes a step towards him, undeterred by the pollen and petals and the sprouts in his footsteps.

“I’m told I make a wonderful teacher,” She offers, sliding one hand into his and the other around his waist. Not waiting for an answer, she should, she  _should_  but damn her nerves and the voice in her head. Death is not meant to dance with Life, with Spring which he so  _clearly_ is, she would be a fool not to notice. Not to see how this could only end in tragedy, how it should never even start, how it could only be terrible for them if they could be bothered to see  _sense_.

 

But the orchestra is leaking through the walls, spilling into the gardens and guiding them through a dance it feels like they have done a hundred times. They must have done, steps easy and effortless and comfortable.

Gods, how long has it been since she was  _comfortable_?

Long enough that she had forgotten the word, the concept, the relief.

Long enough that she is loath to lose it again.

 

“What is your name?” She asks, though it seems superfluous, nearly, now. What weight does a name carry, in the end. She has been called a great many names, and very few connect in record despite how many of them truly  _are_  hers.

Still.

If she is planning to keep him near…

 

“Dirthamen,” He answers, wings billowing behind him.

  
“Dirthamen,” She repeats, spinning him into her as surely as she spins magic into her words.   


  
It is a terrible idea.

 

“I have a proposition for you, dear Dirthamen,”

 

A terrible,  _tragic_ , idea.

 

“I have a kingdom of my own, that requires my presence and much of my time,”

 

_Would he even be happy there, in the dark with the dead and her home?_

 

“I would very much like to show it to you,”

 

_She could make him happy._

 

“If you are amenable to the trip.”

 

_She would make him happy._

 

She has summoned her chariot before she can change her mind, before he can do anything but nod and follow her into it. She cracks the reigns over her spiritual beasts, keeping her prize beside her. Safe, as they travel into the dark of the night. 

Down 

Down 

Down, past the horizon and into the place where the world of sky ends.

 

Down 

Down 

Down, over the waterfalls of the world, across the seven rivers, and around the confused gaze of her ferryman whose eyes are still heavy with sleep.

Through the crowded alleys of the underworld, still empty in the early morning tides before she pulls into her stables.

 

Selene exits first, hand outstretched behind her for her newest, and only, visitor.

He might hate her for this, she knows. Could resent her and regret his choice, here in the dark of her home. Could find her to be as empty and depthless as the river Styx itself.

But she would do her best, to make him happy here.

With her.

“Welcome home, my love.”


End file.
